Latest / Dr Justin Coulson's Happy Families / #423 Go to Your Room...For 10 Days

Transcript

#423 Go to Your Room...For 10 Days · Dr Justin Coulson's Happy Families

• 0:03
  Speaker 1: It's the Happy Families Podcast. It's the podcast for the
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: time poor parent who just wants answers Now.
• 0:10
  Speaker 2: It's the Happy Families Podcast, The podcast for the time
• 0:13
  Speaker 2: poor parent who just wants answers Now? Episode number two
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  Speaker 2: for twenty twenty two. This is doctor Justin Coilson, the
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  Speaker 2: parenting expert on Channel nine's Parental Guidance and the author
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  Speaker 2: of six books about raising happy families. I'm not joined
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  Speaker 2: by Kylie today. If you missed yesterday's episode, I introduced
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  Speaker 2: you had a great conversation with Kate Mead, soon to
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  Speaker 2: be the producer on the breakfast radio show Jonesy and
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  Speaker 2: Amanda in the Sydney radio market, but all round fantastic
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  Speaker 2: Mum to three and Kate is with me for the
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  Speaker 2: rest of the week. Kate, thanks for joining me again
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  Speaker 2: on the podcast Happy Tuesday.
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  Speaker 3: It's good to be here.
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  Speaker 2: We've got a really important topic to talk about today
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  Speaker 2: and I don't want to beat around the bush.
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  Speaker 4: Let's just get straight to it. Over the last couple.
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  Speaker 2: Of weeks, everywhere around Australia, with the exception of Western Australia,
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  Speaker 2: who are very much living in their own little bubble,
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  Speaker 2: and I make no judgments about that. I'm just I'm
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  Speaker 2: just saying Western Australia is really a bit different to
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  Speaker 2: everywhere else right now, Hell to all of our friends
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  Speaker 2: in Perth, by the way, and w a COVID.
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  Speaker 4: It's everywhere.
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  Speaker 2: I don't know if you say, oh, micron or omicron
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  Speaker 2: or some other way some of the variation of describing
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  Speaker 2: the variation, but it's it's like crazy contagious and everyone's
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  Speaker 2: either got it or is going to get it, and
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  Speaker 2: hopefully everyone's been vaccinated because it's apparently not so bad
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  Speaker 2: if you've been vaccinated. A day or two with a
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  Speaker 2: headache and I don't know, a bit of lethargy and
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  Speaker 2: away you go. But the rules are, if you get COVID,
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  Speaker 2: even if you're asymptomatic, you've got to isolate and Kate,
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  Speaker 2: you've got a daughter who got COVID, tell us about it.
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  Speaker 5: Two big questions, two big questions that happen over the summer.
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  Speaker 5: How's your summer?
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  Speaker 3: And did you get it right?
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  Speaker 5: And currently my answer is well, no, I didn't, so
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  Speaker 5: I don't know how, but eighteen year old daughter did.
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  Speaker 5: Now you try seriously and put an eighteen year old
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  Speaker 5: in her bedroom for the ten days or the seven days.
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  Speaker 2: It's just well, we need to talk about that, but
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  Speaker 2: we've also got to talk about it. I mean, how
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  Speaker 2: fortunate in some ways that it was your eighteen year
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  Speaker 2: old and not your twelve year old. Or I'm sure
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  Speaker 2: some parents are thinking, well, what if what if I
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  Speaker 2: get it and my partner doesn't get it? But we're
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  Speaker 2: sleeping in the same bed, so now partner is close contact.
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  Speaker 2: So we've got two parents who have to isolate, and
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  Speaker 2: there goes the kids holiday. Right now, the whole family
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  Speaker 2: is isolating. We're locked in the house for ten days.
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  Speaker 2: Or you've got a child who has got it and
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  Speaker 2: no one else has got it, so then you've got
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  Speaker 2: to lock them in the room for ten days. And
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  Speaker 2: I don't know, but that seems to me like a
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  Speaker 2: special kind of torture for a child. It is for
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  Speaker 2: a child, for the mom and dad family, yeah, yeahah yeah.
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  Speaker 5: And you've got to hope that you've got a network
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  Speaker 5: around you of either extended family or friends that can
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  Speaker 5: help help you out. You know. I like to think
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  Speaker 5: we were probably pretty lucky, but yeah, we really had
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  Speaker 5: to work on ways in which to make sure that
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  Speaker 5: she was just she was okay. And not just in
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  Speaker 5: the health sense, So she was probably lucky. So she
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  Speaker 5: was asymptomatic, but she still had it. So, as you said,
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  Speaker 5: you've still got to do all the isolation part. But yeah,
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  Speaker 5: she needed you know, the food thing was a you know,
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  Speaker 5: I don't need ham and cheese sandwiches. Well that's what
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  Speaker 5: we're having today.
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  Speaker 3: There was you know, the food, by the way, if
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  Speaker 3: food is a big.
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  Speaker 5: Deal anyway in a family, food, when you have someone
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  Speaker 5: in isolation, that's the one thing they've really got to
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  Speaker 5: look forward to.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah, Because you can't really play Monopoly deal
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  Speaker 2: under the door, can you.
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  Speaker 3: No, there's not much that you can do.
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  Speaker 4: You could play battleship or guess who through the doorway, yes.
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  Speaker 3: Yes, and you can play different things with music.
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  Speaker 5: And it sounds like tried, well we tried, but she
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  Speaker 5: was you know, it's at each age group, I guess
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  Speaker 5: of the kids, they would have different challenges.
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  Speaker 3: But for her, she just turned eighteen in August. She
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  Speaker 3: wants to be out. She wants to go to the
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  Speaker 3: clubs and go to the pubs and be socializing with friends.
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  Speaker 2: It's you know, hard, yeah, yeah, I mean it would
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  Speaker 2: be hard enough for us as adults to have to
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  Speaker 2: do that, but to be eighteen and to want to
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  Speaker 2: just live your life. And I think the other challenge
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  Speaker 2: that many people would be encountering, especially with their teens
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  Speaker 2: who are catching COVID, is well, everyone else is out.
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  Speaker 2: Everyone else is pretending that there's nothing the matter. My
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  Speaker 2: kids have told me more stories than I can count
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  Speaker 2: about friends who have caught COVID and who are still
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  Speaker 2: being going to the beach, or still being going to
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  Speaker 2: the movies, or still being going to.
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  Speaker 4: The cinema or sorry, the shopping centers or whatever.
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  Speaker 2: Like that's happening everywhere, right, I mean, it shouldn't be.
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  Speaker 5: It's so hard because but just because others are doing
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  Speaker 5: it doesn't mean that you need to.
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  Speaker 4: You sound so much like a mum. It's the old thing, though.
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  Speaker 3: Isn't it.
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  Speaker 5: Like I don't care what Docy's doing. I don't care
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  Speaker 5: what Stacey's doing. You know, this is what This is
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  Speaker 5: the guideline we're going to follow. That's the one that
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  Speaker 5: Mum's been sent.
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  Speaker 3: So that's it.
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  Speaker 2: What do you do when you've got an eighteen year
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  Speaker 2: old or a fourteen year old or whatever who is
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  Speaker 2: in their room for ten days and they're like, but
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  Speaker 2: I just I just want some sunshine, I just want
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  Speaker 2: some fresh air. I just want to go for a
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  Speaker 2: walk or social distance. I wear my mask, I won't
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  Speaker 2: go near anyone. I won't even take my phone so
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  Speaker 2: that no one can kind of meet up with me.
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  Speaker 2: I can't hide and pretend to be at the park.
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  Speaker 2: Except not, like, did you have to navigate any of
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  Speaker 2: that with her?
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  Speaker 5: Look, if I'm honest, we got lucky, I think in
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  Speaker 5: that road because she knew what the rules were and
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  Speaker 5: there was probably getting be no way around it.
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  Speaker 3: Mum and dad probably weren't going to be like, oh yeah,
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  Speaker 3: that's fine. She didn't. She didn't get lucky in that
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  Speaker 3: parent department.
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  Speaker 5: She got the sorry, these are the guidelines and not
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  Speaker 5: doing this necessarily for your benefit, but it's for the
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  Speaker 5: community and our friends, and.
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  Speaker 2: And that's got to be the framing, because I mean,
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  Speaker 2: I've got three kids who are over eighteen now, and
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  Speaker 2: I think that i'd have the same experience with my kids.
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  Speaker 2: They're great kids, and they've got that empathy. But I
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  Speaker 2: can imagine a lot of parents would be thinking, hang on,
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  Speaker 2: if my child was eighteen, I can pretty much imagine
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  Speaker 2: the saying I'm an adult.
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  Speaker 5: You can't make me Yeah, yeah, yeah, but you get
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  Speaker 5: they I guess you have to hope that, yeah, that
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  Speaker 5: they are switched on to understand it's part of the
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  Speaker 5: bigger picture.
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  Speaker 3: I guess that's it. I guess that's what we would hope.
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  Speaker 5: You know that they might not like it, but have
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  Speaker 5: to lump it because that's the that's the rule for
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  Speaker 5: the moment.
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  Speaker 2: It's the Happy Family's podcast. Right off the break, we're
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  Speaker 2: going to find out what we're supposed to do if
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  Speaker 2: our kids are younger than eighteen or have additional needs,
• 6:53
  Speaker 2: or if we get COVID, what we're supposed to do
• 6:57
  Speaker 2: to get things through for that ten days of isolation.
• 7:01
  Speaker 1: Right after this, it's their Happy Families podcast.
• 7:05
  Speaker 2: For a happier family, Try a Happy Families membership, because
• 7:08
  Speaker 2: a happy family doesn't just happen.
• 7:11
  Speaker 4: Details at happy families dot com dot au.
• 7:14
  Speaker 5: It's the Happy Families Podcast. The podcast for the time
• 7:18
  Speaker 5: poor parent who just wants answers Now with Justin and Kate.
• 7:22
  Speaker 2: You know, just before we talk about what it would
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  Speaker 2: be like if one of the younger kids got COVID,
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  Speaker 2: I was thinking about this idea of boredom.
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  Speaker 4: This seems tangential. But you see where I'm going with this, Kate.
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  Speaker 2: Over the years, I've watched a whole lot of psychologists
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  Speaker 2: write really influential articles about how kids need to be
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  Speaker 2: bored these days, and because of the hyperconnected world we've got,
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  Speaker 2: kids just aren't allowed to be bored where it's overscheduling
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  Speaker 2: our kids, and kids need to be bored because.
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  Speaker 4: Boredom is important.
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  Speaker 2: And if kids can learn to be bored and sit
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  Speaker 2: with the discomfort of boredom, they're going to be more
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  Speaker 2: creative and they're going to do better things with their lives.
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  Speaker 2: And I've written a couple of pieces just saying what
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  Speaker 2: a lot of garbage that is, like an absolute lot
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  Speaker 2: of rot, because if you're bored, the research shows that
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  Speaker 2: you're more likely to experience depression, you're more likely to
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  Speaker 2: experience anxiety. If you've got kids, they're more likely to
• 8:06
  Speaker 2: engage in delinquency. And would you believe just just as
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  Speaker 2: we were talking, I was tapping away on my computer
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  Speaker 2: while you were sharing about Charlotte's COVID experience, and I've
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  Speaker 2: found a brand new study just being published in the
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  Speaker 2: Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. This is this is
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  Speaker 2: a pretty fancy journal that psychologists really want to be
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  Speaker 2: able to publish in as a big deal. We know
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  Speaker 2: that if you stick a person in a room and
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  Speaker 2: leave them to be bored and give them the option
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  Speaker 2: to walk over to the wall, stick their finger into
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  Speaker 2: an electric shock machine and get a shock in their finger,
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  Speaker 2: they'll do that over being bored. People hate being bored,
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  Speaker 2: But this brand new study shows that people behave more
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  Speaker 2: sadistically when they're bored.
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  Speaker 3: Like they'reenomonal, isn't it.
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  Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, yeah, like people actually get nasty. And well
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  Speaker 4: I never did this.
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  Speaker 2: I remember I grew up with kids who if they
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  Speaker 2: were bored, they'd gone put the magnifying glass on the ants,
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  Speaker 2: or they'd pull the wings off flies and watch them around.
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  Speaker 4: Because what do you get when we fly with no wings?
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  Speaker 4: What do you call it? You call it a walk?
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  Speaker 3: Yeah.
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  Speaker 6: I was not one of those kids. I was not
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  Speaker 6: one of those kids. But good for you and that
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  Speaker 6: little yeah, just just awful. And so I just I
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  Speaker 6: just want to put that out there. I know we're
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  Speaker 6: talking about COVID and dealing with the isolation stuff, but
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  Speaker 6: this idea that our kids need to be bored, We've
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  Speaker 6: got to break away from that idea, it's harmful.
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  Speaker 2: It's actually it's allowsy for kids to be bored. They
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  Speaker 2: need to be in enriching environments and then have choice
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  Speaker 2: as to what they do. Anyway, I diagree, well yes
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  Speaker 2: and no. I mean, if you've got a child who's
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  Speaker 2: got COVID, how do you build an enriching environment for them?
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  Speaker 2: If you're twelve year old caught it rather than your
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  Speaker 2: eighteen year old, especially a twelve year old with additional needs,
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  Speaker 2: how will you have managed that?
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  Speaker 4: Kate?
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  Speaker 5: It seems cut and dry and maybe not that great
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  Speaker 5: on paper or maybe logical, but in our case, I'd
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  Speaker 5: have to go in with him, like, Okay, I might
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  Speaker 5: get COVID too. That's like you do that because you know,
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  Speaker 5: we thought to keep this child alive. You know he's
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  Speaker 5: going to need additional help and support and all of that.
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  Speaker 5: I look at So for Charlotte, she's eighteen. The first
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  Speaker 5: couple of days was kind of exciting.
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  Speaker 3: Oh isolation.
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  Speaker 4: I can watch all the Netflix I want and if.
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  Speaker 3: You want, yeah, and I can snapchat my friends and
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  Speaker 3: I don't have to do anything.
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  Speaker 5: I get to sleep all day long. But so there
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  Speaker 5: were some noise and there was some early excitement. As
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  Speaker 5: the week went on, the room got quieter and you
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  Speaker 5: do start to think, no, that is this is not
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  Speaker 5: good for anybody.
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  Speaker 2: We need to talk about solutions though, So if you're
• 10:39
  Speaker 2: a family who's listening and you've got kids who are
• 10:41
  Speaker 2: currently in isolation, or you're in isolation. Number one, we'd
• 10:44
  Speaker 2: love to hear from you podcasts at happy Families dot
• 10:47
  Speaker 2: com dot IU. What have you done that's worked. That's
• 10:52
  Speaker 2: the first thing that I'd really like to know. But Kate,
• 10:54
  Speaker 2: let's talk about solutions that you've identified. And I've got
• 10:57
  Speaker 2: a couple that I've jotted down as well that I
• 10:59
  Speaker 2: think could be helpful. If your family or your child
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  Speaker 2: specifically has to go into isolation because COVID is a
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  Speaker 2: thing and they've got.
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  Speaker 5: It, I guess if you've got screen time at home
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  Speaker 5: that potentially has to go out the window while they're well,
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  Speaker 5: it did for us because the number one, how could
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  Speaker 5: we monitor how much time you're going to be on
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  Speaker 5: the iPad anyway?
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  Speaker 4: Not going to storm in there and take it off her.
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  Speaker 4: Oh my goodness, we're not going to do that.
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  Speaker 5: But also that really is going to be the center
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  Speaker 5: of her universe, that technology that really is going to
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  Speaker 5: be important.
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  Speaker 4: Yeah, I'm with you.
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  Speaker 2: I think that we get so obsessive over screens, and
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  Speaker 2: sometimes rightly so, but context is everything, and that screen
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  Speaker 2: is really going to be the central form of positive
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  Speaker 2: contact that your child has with friends, family, the outside world, whatever.
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  Speaker 4: I'm with you for ten days. If you want to.
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  Speaker 2: Watch ten hours a day of Netflix or play Minecraft
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  Speaker 2: or Fortnite or whatever it is.
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  Speaker 4: It's not ideal, but it's ten days and that's that.
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  Speaker 4: Did you have any ideas just around the food?
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  Speaker 5: The food really was the highlights of the day. It
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  Speaker 5: was almost like when is my next meal coming?
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  Speaker 3: Type thing?
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  Speaker 5: And I don't know. Something that seemed to work was
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  Speaker 5: having Charlotte have the opportunity to say she could google
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  Speaker 5: what she wanted. Maybe it was something a bit different,
• 12:19
  Speaker 5: or she could kind of be putting in some orders
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  Speaker 5: that were reasonable. By the way, may not know this
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  Speaker 5: doesn't but I'm not a great cook. Im very basic.
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  Speaker 5: But if she can give me through something, because that's
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  Speaker 5: it almost felt like the least we could do, the
• 12:32
  Speaker 5: least pople do is provide. I mean I'm not talking
• 12:35
  Speaker 5: about you know, junk food every meal and things like that.
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  Speaker 5: I'm talking about just making sure that she has food
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  Speaker 5: that she can look forward to.
• 12:42
  Speaker 2: Two other things that we could probably talk about. I reckon,
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  Speaker 2: if you've got the capacity to do it, get them
• 12:48
  Speaker 2: outside every day. They need the sunlight, they need the
• 12:52
  Speaker 2: fresh air.
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  Speaker 6: Yeah.
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  Speaker 5: Yeah, And if I'm honest, that was something that Charlotte
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  Speaker 5: was lacking for that week. And I know how much
• 13:00
  Speaker 5: that we all need that, you know yourself, how getting
• 13:03
  Speaker 5: outside and getting some vitamin D and just the fresh
• 13:05
  Speaker 5: air out.
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  Speaker 3: But in her situation unfortunately, Yeah, that's what she got.
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  Speaker 4: And was there anything else that stood out to you
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  Speaker 4: that could be useful?
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  Speaker 5: Oh, if you were ever think about cutting back subscriptions
• 13:19
  Speaker 5: to your stands in your disneys and all of that, Now's.
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  Speaker 4: Not the time. Now is not the time.
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  Speaker 3: Now's the time to look at the UK.
• 13:26
  Speaker 4: Once time go down, get a VPN, get everything you can.
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  Speaker 2: I'm going to throw in one more and that is
• 13:33
  Speaker 2: that if you've got older children who have got stuff
• 13:36
  Speaker 2: that they can do, like whether it's ADMIN or whether
• 13:39
  Speaker 2: there's some school work. Now that's well, school shouldn't be
• 13:41
  Speaker 2: back for anyone yet. But with school coming back, if
• 13:43
  Speaker 2: your kids get it and they've got to isolate, make
• 13:46
  Speaker 2: sure that they maintain a future focus. If there's stuff
• 13:49
  Speaker 2: that needs to be done, emails and checking in with stuff,
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  Speaker 2: I would definitely be encouraging that as well. There's been
• 13:57
  Speaker 2: a great chat Kate me thank you so much again
• 14:00
  Speaker 2: joining me on the Happy Families podcast.
• 14:01
  Speaker 4: Tomorrow.
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  Speaker 2: We're going to talk about the issue of I mean
• 14:04
  Speaker 2: meals has been a highlight of this conversation, but we're
• 14:06
  Speaker 2: going to talk about what to do when you just
• 14:07
  Speaker 2: hate meal times, which I think is going to be
• 14:10
  Speaker 2: a really fun discussion because, let's face it, Kate, we
• 14:14
  Speaker 2: all love food, but as parents we usually do struggle
• 14:17
  Speaker 2: a bit with meal times, and some of them sometimes
• 14:19
  Speaker 2: so do the kids. So that's tomorrow and on Thursday.
• 14:24
  Speaker 2: What are the phrases that you've said to the kids
• 14:27
  Speaker 2: most these holidays. The Happy Families podcast is produced by
• 14:32
  Speaker 2: Justin Rulon from Bridge Media.
• 14:33
  Speaker 4: Craig Bruce is our executive producer.
• 14:35
  Speaker 2: And if you would like more information about making your
• 14:37
  Speaker 2: family happier, particularly if you'd love to get regular advice daily, weekly,
• 14:41
  Speaker 2: monthly so that your family can thrive and flourish, please
• 14:45
  Speaker 2: check out our Happy Families memberships. All the information is
• 14:48
  Speaker 2: at happy families dot com dot au.